


and we are full of stories to be told

by icannotlivewithoutmysoul



Category: Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 16:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icannotlivewithoutmysoul/pseuds/icannotlivewithoutmysoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She needs him now more than ever, her best, closest friend; but must do without him because he had the poor sense to go and fall in love with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and we are full of stories to be told

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cathalin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathalin/gifts).



> Merry Christmas!

It’s been nearly two months since Beth died, and the initial paralyzing haze of grief has dimmed just enough for Jo to wonder ‘What now?’ What does a person do when their worst nightmare has come to pass?

 

Up in the garret, books, inkstand and papers stand undisturbed, gathering dust.

 

****

She tries hard. She tends to her parents, to her work, to the charity work that her late sister held so close to her heart. She visits Meg, plays with the children, and pours through Amy’s letters. She does all of this more out of determination than from genuine enthusiasm.

She hasn’t heard from Laurie in months, since she last dashed his hopes of her ever being capable of returning his feelings. She knows she did the right thing – both she and he deserve somebody they love madly and who they love madly in return– but she misses him so desperately it’s another ache in her heart. She needs him now more than ever, her best, closest friend, but must do without him because he had the poor sense to go and fall in love with her.

Once she’s confident he has gotten over it, she’s going to shake him for the nerve.

 

She goes for long walks, trying to put as much distance between herself and the house, beloved but tainted by suffering and death, as possible. Beth would call her a regular Elizabeth Bennet, Jo thinks, and for some reason the thought soothes instead of hurt. 

A sudden wind seems to decide that her bonnet looks rather fetching, and snatches it greedily for itself. With more energy than she knew she had left, Jo takes off after the fugitive, thanking the heavens her hair is not long enough to fall down her shoulders should her pins fall off.

“I believe this is yours, milady.”

She turns slowly, almost afraid to hope. Sure enough, a pair of black eyes watches her from a familiar brown face. “Teddy?”

“In the flesh. I see you haven’t lost the habit of losing your garments in public.”

“I see you haven’t lost yours for shocking entrances.”

“It’s the Italian in me. We can’t resist them.” He takes her hands. “I came as soon as I heard.”

Her eyes fill. She starts to move, to throw herself into his arms, then remembers herself. This isn’t her boy anymore. This is somebody who wants more from her than she can give.

“Oh, Jo.” There is something in Laurie’s eyes, a shadow that passes immediately, before he pulls her into his arms. “I’m here as your friend. As somebody who loved B-Beth.”

She shuts her eyes tightly at the little catch in his voice. “Oh, Teddy, I missed you.”

He rests his chin on her head. “I missed you, too.”

 

She’s happy to have him back, but the atmosphere between them is strained. The old pillow is back to its position as faithful guardian, and Jo knows, from the look on Laurie’s face, that he realizes it. Still, he doesn’t make any attempt to talk to her about the scenes that took place all those months ago, and skillfully glosses over the content of that one letter.

For this, she’s relieved. Until he decides he’s had enough.

He’s sitting at the piano, not actually playing – nobody has played it since its owner passed – but sliding his fingers over the keys and occasionally pressing one. “Jo, we need to talk.”

“Oh?” She hates the way her voice trembles, but God, she can’t deal with this now.

“ _Oh_ , indeed. I can’t stand this anymore. You withdraw whenever I hold your hand and flinch every time I open my mouth. So let’s just say it at once: I won't renew my proposal.”

Relief is strong and swift. “Oh, Laurie, I’m so happy to hear that.”

“I thought you would be,” he says, with something like amusement playing in his voice. “I was wrong and you were right, and I really hate that part. But during the past months, while I was wandering about Europe like a good-for-nothing fellow, according to Amy–”

“Amy didn’t say that!” Jo cries, more aghast at the prospect of her charming, polite sister uttering such words to their rich friend than at Laurie deserving them.

“Not in those exact words, but close enough. Believe me, I earned it. Anyhow, while I was lounging around Europe, I had time to think. You were right. We should never suit, and ‘tis lucky you realized it when I could not.”

“So it is over? We can be friends again truly?”

“Can’t we! I want that more than anything else, and so now–” and here Laurie can’t speak anymore, for Jo leaps from the couch and throws her arms around him.

“Oh, Teddy, I’m so glad! I'm so glad!”

“I know,” he says, and his tone momentarily worries Jo again until he adds, “We shall be brother and sister ‘till we die.” Disentangling himself, he smiles his old smile, the mischief-filled one that can, and has, gotten her into all sort of scrapes. “How do you fancy a trip to the theater tonight?”

 

“I have a proposition for you. Well,” Laurie amends, “Grandfather and I do.”

Jo glances at Marmee and Meg before focusing on her friend. “What proposition?”

“Grandfather has wanted to do something to honor Beth for some time now. In the end, he decided to fund an institution for musical little women who lack the means to learn.”

“That is splendid of him!” Jo bursts out.

“But I suggested that we could expand it. By making it so that not only musical girls would be benefitted, but also young ladies interested in any sort of art. Painting, sculpture, drama. We’re even considering writing, although not many people think good writing can be taught. We shall call it the Elizabeth March Academy for the Arts.”

“That is wonderful of both of you, and we couldn’t be happier.” Meg says, drying a stray tear streaking down her cheek.

“How are you going to go about it?” Jo wonders, blinking fast.

“Well. This is where we need you,” he smiles at all of them. “How do you fancy being in charge of the Playwright and Acting area of this new Academy, Jo?”

 

She has qualms at first – Jo never received formal lessons of either writing or drama. But Laurie and Mr. Laurence insist, and Father and Marmee are so proud, and so grateful for this acknowledgment of their late daughter, that she gives in in soon enough.

“How many pianos to start? Two or three?” Laurie wonders, as the newly appointed Music master.

“Two should do. The girls won’t be all using them at the same time,” Jo mumbles, mindful of her mouth full of pins as she sews the stage curtains. “How do you plan to find the time to teach piano and singing while managing the finances?”

Laurie makes a superior gesture with a hand covered in ink. For some reason, it makes her grin. “Plenty of hours in the day, and I intend to make good use of them all. Can’t have grandfather thinking I’ve become a dandy.”

“Now that is a terrifying thought, if an oddly convulsing one,” she says, forgetting herself, and swears when all the pins in her mouth streak down to the floor.

He laughs so hard, she’s afraid he might hurt himself. “Lovely vocabulary coming from a lady,” he says when he can speak.

“Be quiet and help me gather them up.”

“See, now, that’s not fun.” But he crouches down with a grin and starts picking up pins.

All of a sudden, Jo laughs. “If only Meg could see us now.”

“We’re not racing this time,” he points out, looking up into her smiling face. His own smile vanishes. “You’re bleeding.”

She gingerly touches her bottom lip. “It’s nothing. I’ve had worse, as well you know.”

Laurie starts to reach out, seems to think better of it. “You certainly have. There, these are all of them now.”

 

The Elizabeth March Academy for the Arts is a resounding success. Of course it doesn’t bring in any money, but between Mr. Laurence’s funding, several contributions from wealthy patrons, and Laurie and John’s managing, it is self-supporting. And, most important to all their eyes, it honors Beth in a way that nobody would’ve dreamed, least of all Beth herself.

Jo is in her element: writing the plays for the girls to act out and dashing to and fro making up the sets with Marmee and Meg’s help. She spends more time with Laurie than she has since he went off to college all those years ago, and finds that they’re as comfortable in each other’s company as they were before he got it into his head that he loved her. She’s twenty-three now, he nearly twenty-four, and it’s starting to feel as though they’re well and truly adults now, instead of children playing at it.

“Here, hold this,” she says, passing the chest filled with props from the girls’ latest play, and trying to grab another from the shelf. “We need to find a new lounging chair. Ours is too new, and this play demands a shabby one.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” he answers, then shakes his head. “Will you please let me grab that?”

“I can do it, ‘tisn’t heavy.”

“Maybe not, but it is still too high for you.”

She gives him an ugly look. “I can do it, Theodore.”

He ugly looks her right back. “Oh, no,” he takes hold of her waist and pulls her aside. “I can take all manners of teasing, but not that. There now, here’s the chest. Jo?”

She looks at him, red-faced and wide-eyed, and he realizes what he just did. Something that she wouldn't have given a second thought to once, before he changed the rules. “Jo, I told you I only want to be your friend. I meant it.”

“Well. Yes. But don’t be doing it again.”

She nearly runs out of the storage room.

 

She isn’t quite sure what just happened, but she knows it doesn’t bode well for her. This… tingling, she decides, is new. She hasn’t felt it before, and doesn’t quite know what it means or how to deal with it.

She does know she feels rattled, and she doesn’t like it one bit.

 

Amy comes back, shocking all with her refusal of Fred Vaughn, and with her arrival another load eases from Jo’s shoulders. Her sister is much changed, and she doesn’t think that change is only owing to the three years that have turned her into an adult. There is a genuine confidence in Amy now, one that doesn’t leave room for arrogance.

“Will you tell me now why you refused the boy?” Jo asks, helping put Amy’s things in the drawers. They have decided to share her room, as Amy doesn’t want to sleep in the room that was Beth’s.

Jo can hardly blame her.

“I don’t know,” Amy returns, carefully hanging a silk dress in the closet. “I was certain I was going to say yes. He’s kind and clever, has a nice family, and I think he would make a fine husband. And you should see the estate. It’s the most beautiful house I have seen in my life.”

“Sounds like a good reason to commit oneself to a man for all eternity,” Jo says wryly, and Amy laughs.

“It sounded good to me. But then… I couldn’t do it. He was sitting there, saying how he loved me and would make me happy if only I let him, and I could only say ‘thank you, but I’m afraid I don’t feel the same.’ I walked around in a haze after he left, I didn’t understand myself.”

“And now you do?”

“Maybe. Laurie and I spent a lot of time together in Europe, and I…” Amy brings herself to a halt. “Never mind. Do you think dinner is ready?”

It is, but for some reason Jo finds that her appetite has quite left her.

 

The Moffats holds a New Year party, and invite the March daughters. Jo dresses slowly, remembering that night, all those years ago, when another party took place, one that Beth and Amy were too young to attend.

The night of her first real conversation with Laurie.

She smiles, thinking that tragedy may have knocked on the family’s door and torn them all to pieces, but she still has a lot to be grateful for. Her family and the Laurences.

 

“I wondered if your dress would have a hole in the back, or coffee all over the front. You know, for the sake of tradition.”

Jo laughs. “I considered it, but Amy threatened to disown me.”

“ _And_ you’re wearing two gloves. Have you gone and become a lady when I wasn't looking?”

“That is a definite no,” she can’t account for the wistfulness she feels at the honest answer. She isn’t a lady, and she doesn’t _want_ to be one. The idea of being in Sally Moffat’s shoes is enough to make her shudder. But…

“Amy seems to be enjoying herself,” Laurie says, watching over at where Amy is surrounded by – of course– half a dozen men hanging on her every word.

For some reason, Jo’s back goes up at the mention of her sister. “I’m sure she is. She’s been caught up in all the work we’ve been doing, and she has always loved a good party.”

“She’s good at them. I think I’ll go ask her to dance. We fell into quite a good rhythm in Nice. Excuse me.”

Shortly after, her best friend and her sister are dancing, clearly enjoying themselves.

_'Amy is left for him, and they would suit excellently.'_

Back then, she assumed she’d be pleased should this come to pass.

Back then, she didn’t have trouble breathing past the lump in her throat.

 

Things go back to normal after the party. Or nearly. The way she feels when Laurie’s around, that… awareness, is not normal. And it is frightening.

“Is something the matter, Jo?” Mrs. March asks peering into her daughter’s troubled face.

Jo hesitates for a quarter of a minute. “I think so, mother. But I’m not quite sure what it is yet.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

This time, the hesitation is longer. “Not now. But I will if I can’t find an answer soon.”

Seemingly satisfied, Mrs. March nods. And Jo doesn’t notice the small smile that creeps on her mother’s face when she turns away.

 

She’s in the garret, scribbling furiously at the novel she’s working on, when Amy pokes her head into the room.

“May I come in?”

“What does my cap say?”

“It says go away, but when have I ever done what you told me?”

She can’t help but laugh. “I’m busy. Go sketch Laurie or something.”

Amy’s brows go up, and Jo realizes that her comment may have given her away. “I have, but I’m focusing on oils at the moment.”

“I thought you gave up painting because you thought you didn’t have the genius for it.”

“Yes, well, I decided that maybe genius can be learned after all.”

“How remarkably philosophical of you. Now what do you want?”

“Are you all right?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You seem pretty… distracted lately.”

“Distracted?”

“Well, you jump sometimes when somebody talks to you, you eat less and I could swear you’ve started blushing more often. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re in love.”

Jo tries to look her sister in the way without coloring.

Amy’s lips twitch. “I’ll leave you to your writing then.”

 

She’s taking a long walk – one of the few she has time for now– when she spots Laurie and Amy talking. They seem to be arguing, because she’s red in the face and her brows are drawn together, whereas Laurie’s look is that closed off expression she has seen countless times on his face. She hasn’t seen it since…

Jo stops dead in her tracks. Since she rejected his proposal. Ever since Teddy came back, he’s been open and friendly, very much the way he was when they were children, when he only loved her in a brotherly fashion.

What _are_ they arguing about?

Unable to resist, not even considering the rudeness of such a gesture, she creeps closer, making sure not to be seen. She’s half hidden behind a tree, so she can hear but not see them.

“You must tell her.” 

Teddy’s voice is cold. “I mustn't do anything, and I’d thank you to kindly leave the matter alone.”

“Yes, you must. Unless _your_ feelings have changed. I teased her about being in love yesterday, and she didn’t deny it.”

“Oh, and did she say she was in love with me?”

“Well, no, but…”

“No buts. I refuse to put myself through that again. Have you ever been in love, Amy?”

“No.”

“Well now, you go and fall in love, and declare your feelings to somebody who will reject them. I’ll wait, and then you can tell me how eager you are to be in that position again.”

Amy huffs out a breath. “She’s my sister. I live with her. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“Not in this. She can’t find out how I feel about her. She won’t from me.”

Jo’s heart is beating so loudly that she almost can’t hear the rest. Laurie must have glared at her sister, because Amy retorted indignantly, “She won’t hear it from me either! But I insist that she should hear it from _you_.”

Jo creeps away. She has a lot to think about.

 

She finds him before the piano at the big house. He’s hunched in a way that would undoubtedly make Aunt March despair about today’s youth, carelessly sliding his fingers over the keys.

She doubts that he realizes he’s playing Beth’s favorite song.

Is this one of the reasons she loves him? Because he loves her family nearly as much as she does?

“I’m fond of that song.”

Laurie’s head snaps around. “Jo. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Your grandfather sent me up. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh. Well. Talk.”

She doesn’t have a speech planned. She tried to come up with one, but decided that she would probably mangle it up so she wouldn't bother.

Right now, she rather regrets her lack of forethought.

“I heard you talking to Amy.”

His smile vanishes. “What?”

“Yesterday.”

He stands, face averted. Hands in his jacket pockets, he approaches the windows. “I’m sorry to hear that. I would’ve preferred you didn’t, for both our sakes.”

“Teddy, I’m glad I heard it.”

He glances at her. Jo is confused to see the bitter smile tugging at his lips. “Why? Because you want to know when to leave for New York again?”

She opens her mouth to reply. Then closes it, takes a deep breath. And repeats the cycle again. “No, because I love you too.”

Teddy spins around so quickly she wonders, vaguely, how he manages to stay upright. “What did you say?”

“I love you. Everything I said three years ago was true. I didn’t feel that way about you, and I didn’t think we’d be well suited for each other. Even now I’m not sure we wouldn’t end up killing each other before the first year is up, should the two of us be so silly as to go and marry. But… I have faith. I’d like to try.”

Later, Jo will think that the rushed words and furious blush must have seemed quite comical to an outsider. But not to her Teddy.

He’s still silent, probably more out of shock than intent, as he currently resembles a gaping goldfish. He finally snaps to attention, the spark in his eyes so happy and tender it would take her breath away if she weren’t already breathless.

“Jo, when I first asked you to marry me, I was a boy,” he says, his voice so low she has to strain to hear him. “I wouldn’t have known how to make you happy, or how to be the husband that you deserved. You were right. Now I’m a man, and I hope I shall,” his eyes stare into hers, suddenly so intense that she has trouble looking at them. “But on one thing, you were  _wrong_. I don’t want a society lady in my home, and I would never hate your writing. I want  _you_ , and I should be bursting with pride for my author wife.”

They look at each other, both apparently taken aback by the situation in which they find themselves. Then they both start to laugh. Part hysterical, part disbelieving, and mostly happy beyond words.

“Does that mean I can ask you again?”

“No,” with a devious smile, Jo approaches her best friend and the man she loves. Two in one. “You already had your turn. This time, I shall. Will you marry me, Teddy?”

He traces her bottom lip with his thumb, watches her tremble. Leaning in for a kiss he stopped hoping for months ago, Laurie smiles. “I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
